Birthday Blues

Well, another 20th February over for another year. Does anyone enjoy birthdays as little as me? Does anyone sit there and think I shouldn’t be this old, I haven’t achieved anything. I am not talking about anything spectacular. I haven’t even done what normal people do. I should have a settled life now, a wife, maybe kids and a nice house. Instead I a, living like when I first left home in basically a starter flat by myself. Having said that I still feel 24 inside and cannot reconcile my true age but that has been the way for many years.

I spent the day alone again as usual, watching DVDs of my childhood. Not kinds programmes but series I remember. Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Persuaders, The New Avengers, The Professionals and Return of the Saint, in chronological order – although the first two I wouldn’t have seen when they were originally shown.

How many people are so fed up with their lives they want to go back and start again. I have dreamt of doing this for years. Trying to decide when would be the best age to go back to. That was the reason I wrote my last book “Rewind”. I thought as I couldn’t do it I would write about it instead. At first I was going to write about exactly what I would do myself if I got the chance. I started off like that and the bit about the bully was about me because I really did get pulled into the old school and get punched. I found though that I had written myself into a corner so then had to make it totally fictional. I don’t know if it worked. The few people I know who have read it seem to.

The sum of my achievements so far is my three books, written in my spare time whilst working full time. The first,”Trance”, is dead and buried and the other two are just buried in the 300,000 plus rankings above me. At this time, writing this in bed, unable to sleep as usual, I ask myself, do I have any real talent? Below is what someone wrote about my two Kindle novels before they were Kindle novels. He was going to publish them so had a vested interest and I think I now know it was a snow job.

Further to our exchange of e-mails, and rather slower than I anticipated for which I apologise,  I have now had the opportunity of reading Rewind and Tommy Trouble  both of which are highly impressive. They are as good examples of their type as I have read for some considerable time.  I have to confess, that I was so impressed with Rewind that I actually read it twice; once from an analytical, professional point of view, and once purely for my own personal pleasure. Quite simply, it is an excellent novel on every level and one which should appeal to adult readers from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, being particularly resonant with the late 30 and early 40 somethings, who will be able to identify with your narrator and protagonist, Jason, to a high degree. Here we have all the finest ingredients of a captivating novel skillfully blended together with a careful and expert hand, flavoursome throughout, and I was delighted that there was an additional kick of spice right at the very end, when I, as a reader, really thought there could be no more surprises.  In fact, the novel is positively packed with twists, turns and surprises and is totally unpredictable. For example, both the poem, ‘Why?’ and the Prologue, narrated in the third person, paint an incredibly sorrowful, melancholic scene and we think we are in store for a real tale of woe (albeit one which, as we can already see, will be well told) yet this is far from being the case at all. After the appearance of the Wizard God in Chapter 1, when Jason suddenly finds himself lying in his childhood bunk bed, there is, in fact, a substantial amount of wit, dry humour and real laugh out loud moments in the book. You do retain the serious nature essential to the plot, yet succeed in doing so without ever making the pace slow, the tone dull or the mood overly sombre.  As a writer, you are a natural talent, without doubt, and no diamond in the rough at that; your skills have been honed and polished and, partly because of this and partly because of the utterly mesmerising plot you have crafted, the book is an absolute joy to read. You subtly change the nature of your style so that it meshes perfectly with the content. For example, in the opening, you utilise short, staccato sentences and paragraphs to add suspense so that the whole section reads like an ominously ticking clock, whereas later in the story, when the young Jason, with his adult mind, begins to have a little fun with the life that had formerly disappointed him so much, your method of writing is much more musing and relaxed and, again, often humorous.  In essence, this is every adult’s fantasy, and this is why I foresee it having wide appeal. Though few of us have reached a point at which we become so disillusioned we decide to end our life forty years to the day after it began, we all wish we had done things differently and, as Jason is given this gift of retaining the knowledge with which his adult life has furnished him, whilst, essentially, beginning it again, the reader is vicariously able to travel with him on this fantastical journey where anything can, and indeed does, happen.   Personally, I found your use of dialogue to be amongst the strongest literary tools you have employed and one which has certainly been wielded to good effect. There is a large proportion of dialogue in the work and though, when acting as a consultant providing advice to aspiring audiences, this is something I would not advise, you have made it work and, I have to say, I am not quite sure how! Maybe it is because of the realism and credibility it lends to the characters and their predicament, or maybe it is because much of it rings so true; but, whatever the reason, the conversations between characters are a great asset to the work as a whole and introduce an additional element of drama. It is mainly for the reasons outlined above, as well as others – such as the edge-of-seat suspense with which the novel is imbued, the vivid characterisation and the sheer innovation and originality of the narrative, that I feel this work is one which would lend itself beautifully to a visual medium, with a film or TV script being, in a way, already half crafted. As the British film industry grows in terms of quality and demand, it is certainly not something which I would rule out.  What is, perhaps, most impressive about the book is that you succeed in drawing all the different strands of the plot together in what is a conclusion which the reader will find both hard to predict yet easy to believe. This is no mean feat when there are so many different narrative elements to the book and you leave no important questions unanswered nor any issues which may have been difficult to resolve hanging. You do, however, leave the reader with a positive feast in the way of food for thought and this is something which few writers have the ability to do, thus ensuring that the book is not only an entertaining one, but also, vitally, very memorable. Tommy Trouble is every bit as an enjoyable read as Rewind, though it may lack the sheer force, the number of times I found myself laughing at your extremely witty dialogue does, in itself, make this a perfect candidate for publication. It is notoriously difficult to write novels which are really amusing, and not simply trying to be and the way you channel the great comedy authors, like Tom Sharpe and Kingsley Amis, is much to be admired.  The narrative is different, (which is great and shows you are no one trick pony) and whereas Rewind has a subtle sub-text and deeper meaning, Tommy Trouble concentrates chiefly on a rip-roaring plot, explosive amounts of action and quite often, utterly hilarious dialogue.  There are a lot of characters who play important parts, be they major or minor and Jenny, Jane, Peter, Cox, Chalky, Vicky and Clarence all play very specific roles. I am honestly amazed at how well crafted each of the characters are, how well they stand out, how three dimensional they are, and how you develop the personality of each one to fit their role in the novel perfectly. The characters, then, contribute as much to the novel as the plot itself.  And what a plot it is! It rather reminds me, in a very positive way, of a comedic James Bond novel with a twist. Thomas, from working at the offices of Pratt, Pratt, Wally and Pratt (which made me chuckle in itself) goes from being a somewhat ordinary character to one who performs extraordinary deeds, and, as we witness the plot unfold, his character burgeons and takes on fascinating and, again, amusing new attributes.  The book is a light read, stresses the importance of entertaining fiction better than anything I have read lately, and should appeal to a male reading audience of a wide range in terms of age and background; definitely a book with which I would part money to own.